Colombia: Hundreds of families in Cali are expelled by government

We share a resume of a report published by Nueva Democracia, the full report can be read here.

On October 26, hundreds of families from Minga Cali – 26 organizations that struggle, among other things, for a worthy home – occupied the land of la Betulia to solve their lack of housing. They have been 19 months negotiating with the authorities and they still do not have houses. After 12 hours in which the families constructed different buildings (tents, toilets, collective storehouses), the forces of State repression, police officers and riot police, violently evicted the families.

The families started their journey towards the occupation in the dawn, many even started the night before due to the lack of means. There were people of all ages, including aged people which had been working during their whole life and still can not effort an own house.

Families organized themselves, taking into account things like security (for example the points with the easiest access for the police, where the families prepared for and aware to combat could stay)

At 8 am, the police and the “owner” of the land – SAE, which is the institution that administers the assets that are under precautionary measures or in the process of forfeiture of ownership, seized mainly from drug traffickers – arrived. These properties have a lot of private interests and corruption. Apparently, more “owners” with conflicting stories about who owned it appeared, but in all of them right where the families were it was their property and they had to leave.

Hours later, the police forces began to organize under the command of the director of SAE, who asked for the intervention of the police, to expel the families. At 4:00 pm, they began to enter through the lower part of the land, where many people resisted with great force, and despite the large number of police they had to take an hour to be able to arrive to the next higher plane, where more families were waiting to resist. Nueva Democracia writes: “The indignation was total, some riot police and officials of the mayor’s office, faithful to their anti-popular spirit, full of contempt for the poor people who struggle, mocked the masses who tried to save some plastics.”

When the families were forced to abandon the land and everything they had built during that day, many women shouted insults and slogans “full of hatred, class hatred, hatred against those who dare to raise their arms against working people to defend the interests of the ruling classes. ‘Murderers’, ‘bootlickers’, ‘how bad, how bad must one be, to repress the people in order earn your money?’, etc., shouted face to face, into the face of the policemen who watched them pass by and felt all the contempt of the people they had sworn to defend.”

After having to abandoned the land, the families were both eager to continue the struggle, and also sad, but days later, Minga Cali issued a statement demanding the dismissal of the SAE official who called for the violent eviction of the families “For his anti-democratic disposition, for the disregard of the 7 inter-institutional commissions where non-compliance has prevailed, for not offering concrete solutions in terms of decent housing for the families of the Minga Cali, for refusing dialogue and prioritizing the sending of the ESMAD (translator’s note: riot police) to harass the families in the peaceful settlement of the Minga Cali in La Betulia, we denounce Luis Mejía and demand his resignation or immediate dismissal as director of the southwestern region of the SAE”

Also, the same day, dozens of families were mobilized to a SAE event, where they took the microphones and denounced the eviction in La Betulia, demanded the dismissal of Luis Mejía, and that the promises of land that the government has made to the families be fulfilled. Thus, the struggle for land of the families of Minga Cali continues.